Harlem Stage Artistic Director & CEO Patricia Cruz to Step Down After 25 Years

Patricia Cruz will step down from her leadership position as Artistic Director and CEO of Harlem Stage and take on a special advisory role on July 1. The visionary arts administrator leaves a titanic quarter-century legacy of transformation, daring programming, and the significant expansion and reinforcement of a supportive and adventurous community of artists and audiences at Harlem Stage. 

During Harlem Stage’s 40th anniversary gala on June 3,  the organization will announce Cruz’s successor, consistent with the goals of the organization’s five-year strategic plan (FY21-25), in which the institution initiated its Succession Planning. In 2023, Harlem Stage formally assembled a Succession Committee to facilitate the process. The organization’s next leader, as Cruz says, “will guide Harlem Stage to the next level of cultural excellence and diversity, with a plan to propagate the work of the extraordinary artists that we have nurtured to national and international communities.” 

In her 25 years at Harlem Stage, Cruz’s myriad accomplishments include her completion of a $26 million campaign for the adaptive restoration of the 134-year-old Gatehouse into the organization’s state-of-the-art theater and offices. The project, completed in 2006, launched the rebrand of the organization, formerly Aaron Davis Hall, Inc., as Harlem Stage. It has also served as a catalyst for economic and community development for the area surrounding the Gatehouse. 

Consistently expanding the organization’s programs and audiences, Cruz has led Harlem Stage in identifying and supporting the development of new work by artists of color. Three major initiatives launched under her leadership continue to bring transcendent art to audiences: WaterWorks, the organization’s signature commissioning program supporting both emerging and established artists; E-Moves, Harlem Stage’s signature dance series bringing together phenomenal choreographers, artists, musicians, and dancers of color to showcase their dynamic visions and pull audiences into a grand celebration of movement and message; and the music series Uptown Nights, presenting a dynamic set of musical artists across genres. She has also secured over $2MM in endowment funds for Harlem Stage.

Cruz has brought an astonishing, multigenerational, multi-disciplinary, and stylistically varied range of artists to create, perform, speak, and commune at Harlem Stage. This lineage of artists  includes Kyle Abraham, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott), Ambrose Akinmusire, Camille A. Brown, Ronald K. Brown, nora chipaumire, Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité, Robert Glasper, Roger Guenveur Smith, Carl Hancock Rux, Craig Harris, Nona Hendryx, Vijay Iyer, José James, Bill T. Jones, Tamar-kali, Mike Ladd, Tania León, Abbey Lincoln, Jason Moran, Meshell Ndegeocello, Queen Esther, Eddie Palmieri, Max Roach, Sonia Sanchez, Stew, Sekou Sundiata, Cecil Taylor, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar/Urban Bush Women, Cassandra Wilson, Maimouna Youssef aka Mumu Fresh, and many more.

Cruz’s programming has on many occasions honored revolutionary historical movements and figures pivotal to the trajectory of Black American art — locating those legacies’ resonances in the current day and contemporary artistic innovation. Harlem Stage conceived New York’s citywide Year of James Baldwin in 2015, which featured acclaimed works such as Stew’s Notes of a Native Song and Meshell Ndegeocello’s, Can I Get a Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin. In 2022/23, as Harlem Stage’s 40th anniversary approached, the organization presented Black Arts Movement: Examined, conceived by Carl Hancock Rux as an expansive series devoted to deepening and unpacking understandings of the Black Arts Movement, its intersections with the larger Black Power Movement, and its historic and cultural relevance in today’s America.

Cruz says, "From the moment I was recruited from the Studio Museum to join Harlem Stage, then known as Aaron Davis Hall, it was an immediate homecoming. Going home to build a home to become the Harlem Stage Gatehouse — a sacred space from which clean water flowed in the late 19th century into a theater from which art and culture flows in the 21st century." 

She adds, "Art has always been political — appeasing or thanking the Gods, the church, criticizing (frequently slyly) the authorities, the oppressors. To combat racism, injustice, and inequities with art; to understand and reveal the visionary intentions of underrecognized Black artists and artists of color is not a career, it has been a calling and how grateful I am to have been called."

Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell, President of the Harlem Stage Board of Directors, says, “At a time when Black women in leadership roles are under attack, Pat Cruz has been a beacon of strength and resistance. She’s led Harlem Stage successfully, and fearlessly, through pivotal moments for more than two decades. Pivotal moments like September 11, 2001, the financial crisis of 2009, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Her strength and resistance are exemplified in her tireless fight for equity in the arts. Arts organizations of color are consistently underfunded yet, in spite of this, Harlem Stage continues to be a place where the talent and voices of artists of color are amplified. We are grateful for her leadership and excited for the next phase of Pat Cruz.” 

Cruz has over 40 years of experience in arts management, having, prior to her leadership at Harlem Stage, been Deputy Director for Programs for The Studio Museum in Harlem for nearly a decade; there, she directed the planning, implementation, and management of all Studio Museum programs. She began her tenure at the Studio Museum in 1982 as Director of Development and began her tenure at Harlem Stage, first as Executive Director, in 1998.

Photo credit: Paula Lobo

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